Learn to sell

Why don't you leave then? There are jobs everywhere.

Even in the smallest town in middle on nowhere (say Montana) you can find a job. It might not be a perfect fit for your skills, but you can find one. There are thousands of small towns scattered across the US with some little company that makes something obscure but essential to society. Example: you probably never think about sewage pumps (not the treatment plant, just the pumps by the side of the road) - they are essential to society though and somebody needs to write the software that controls them. Why not you?

Of course moving implys a lot of changes. You can't go to a Broadway show (you live in California so you can't anyway - which is why I use this example), the community musical in the next town it pretty good though and the fact that they are not on the level of Broadway makes them fun in a different way. Or maybe you can find a different activity to fill your life with once you limit yourself to 9-5 plus the 15 minute walk each way to the other side of town to get home.

Of course there is nothing wrong with Montreal that the other poster mentioned. It is a nice city if you decide that a city life is for you. Of course it is in Canada which might be a negative for you, but you can still choose from any of several hundred cities scattered around the country. Nothing wrong with any of them either. All have specific advantages and disadvantages.

One of my first jobs out of college was software sales. Really opened my eyes to the absurdity of that industry.

Very wolf of wallstreeet-esque. The tech was mostly repackaged opensource software with a nicer UI and the senior sales guys were doing copious drugs and bringing down like six figure commissions on multi-million dollar contracts. They hired an army of associates to generate leads and then swooped in to grab the commission. The play was to cold call the shit of company, weasel you way into a decision maker's schedule, and basically roll the dice they might buy your software because they needed to check a box - it barely mattered what the thing actually did and beyond a well rehearsed script no one understood even the basics of the technology/problem space. It was also very feast or famine - a few made absurd cash but most lived on a precarious edge where they felt they might be fired at any moment.

Understanding this is how the world actually works was a valuable education. I do feel with the rise of 'big tech' things have improved a bit and there is a renewed interest in approaching business problems with data and something that approximates a pseudo objective science-like process. But barely.

Ding-ding-ding. That's the secret.

Here is the best place to start. Not a book on sales. A book on how to craft a message that will be heard by your audience.

https://www.amazon.com/So-What-Communicate-Matters-Audience/...

Short and sweet.

As a sales leader and consultant, I kept being asked to offer weekly personalized sales coaching for technical founders. I launched it a few weeks ago and so far it's been pretty great for both parties.

Being able to sit down on a weekly basis to game plan the sales approach, go over calls, and hold them accountable has been immeasurable.

p.s. if anyone is interested - I'm in the process of launching a "Selling 101" online course for founders to cover the fundamentals of sales (finding leads, cold calling, performing demonstrations, closing deals, etc).